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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The date of the writing of the Secunda Pastorum and, ipso facto, of the flourishing of the “Wakefield Master,” has been variously given from “the fourteenth century or even earlier” to “the reign of Henry VI or Edward IV” the more usual dates centering about Wat Tyler's Rebellion, 1381, or the first decade of the fifteenth century. The basis of these widely differing datings has been found in the implications of various social allusions in the plays, and one of these allusions, that to horned head-dress, has been used very diversely. This fact, coupled with the fact that Professor Oscar Cargill has claimed that “there seem to be no allusions in the (Wakefield) cycle which may positively refer to any events after 1355,” led me to undertake the present study. As a result I am here proposing a date definitely later than the ones commonly chosen and advocated. Let us turn first to the evidence offered by the costume passages in the plays.
1 Katharine Lee Bates, The English Religious Drama, p. 49.
2 Alexander Douce, in his statement prepared for the sale of the manuscript in 1814. See Surtees Society, iii (1836), vii–viii.
3 Thomas Raine, the first editor, would date 1388. (Surtees Soc., iii, viii, note); Charles Mills Gayley would date from “the decade on either side of Wat Tyler's Rebellion,” 1381, to the “period of Praemunire, 1392,” (really 1393), (Plays of Our Forefathers, pp. 134–135); Ernest Hemingway also prefers this dating, (English Nativity Plays, p. xlii).
4 So Alfred Pollard (EETS, ES, lxxi, xxvi–xxvii); Charles Davidson, speaking of the poet says, “I judge him a late contributor to a cycle long established,” (Studies in the English Mystery Plays, p. 155); Alexander Hohlfeld puts the plays at “the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century,” (Altenglischen Kollectivmysterien, p. 310); Frances Foster says the language “fits neatly … in the first decade of the fifteenth century,” (PMLA, xiii, 135).
5 PMLA, xli, 812, n. 2. Mrs. McIntosh follows Cargil loosely, placing the plays vaguely from “1349–1400,” (Hesperia, xi, 160).
6 The manuscript itself is variously dated as c. 1450, by Louis Wann (PMLA, xliii, 141); vaugely about the middle of the fifteenth century by Pollard, (EETS, ES, lxxi, xxvii and xi, note); c. 1450 by NED.; and “towards the end of the same (fifteenth) century” by Gayley, (Rep. Eng. Comedies, i, xxiii).
7 The Wakefield Group in the Townley Cycle,“ Hesperia, xi, 243–244. Cf. also Gayley, Rep. Eng. Com., i, xxvii.
8 “Stafford blew” as the name of a cloth (Play iii, 200), and “colknyfs,” apparently “cabbage knives,” (Play xii, l. 57), are given by the NED. as occuring only in our plays.
9 “Pledours in worldly courtes hauen Tonges lyke to the langet of the balance.” (Pilg. Sowie, i, xiv (1859), 11).
10 James R. Planché, Dictionary (London 1879), p. 217. Dorothy Hughes, Illustrations of Chaucer's England, p. 164, dates the Eulogium as “c. 1362.”
11 William Camden, Remaines, 2d edition, pp. 232–233. The section on “Apparel” appears first in this edition.
12 On this all authorities are agreed. Cf. Herbert Norris, Costume and Fashion (London 1927), p. 323; C. J. ffoulkes, Curator of the Tower Armouries, Mediæval England, p. 186; Mr. Russell, in the letter quoted, and others. Mr. Will Stephenson, in his exhaustive listings of the brasses of the West and East Ridings, gives no example with a tabard, though he gives one case, that of Sir John Manleverere of Allerton Manleverer, West Riding, c. 1400, with a jupon (Yorkshire Archeological Journal, xv, 1 ff.; xii, 195 ff.; xv, 3). Herbert Druitt, Costume on Brasses (London 1906), p. 166, says the tabard as a knightly garment won its way slowly, only two cases during the Complete Plate Period, ending early Henry VI, being known to him. He says further that Haines cites the brass of Sir Ralph Shelton, 1424, Great Snoring, Norfolk, as wearing a tabard, but at present only the head survives (ibid., p. 167).
13 Letter dated from the College of Arms, London, 30 March, 1933.
14 Prologue, 541.
15 Ibid., 76.
16 A stone effigy of Henry IV on Battlefield Church, Shrewsbury, c. 1408, shows that monarch wearing a jupon, as does the brass of Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 1406, St. Mary's, Warwick, and that of Sir William Bagot, 1407, Baginton, Warwickshire (Druitt, op. cit., pp. 157, n. 1, 162). The jupon, worn originally with mail, was more shaped to the body than the tabard, but the two were very alike, as any one will see who compares the jupon of the Black Prince in Westminster Abbey with the tabard worn by Henry VI. They are reproduced by Planché, Dictionary, 317 and 499. As late as 1415 the stone effigy of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, Wingfield, Suffolk, shows the jupon (Druitt, p. 168, n. 2).
17 Date accepted from the Enc. Brit., 14th ed.
18 Mr. Louis B. Wright, of the Huntington Library, suggests that the expression “haue at thy tabard” may be a conventional one and thus have nothing to do with the actual garments worn by the knight. The whole habit of our poet is so visually concrete, however, that this possibility, though it must be granted, does not seem to me likely. Note that the Prima Mulier strikes at a knight's “hood” and his “nose,” (ll. 337, 339) and that the Tertia Mulier strikes at another's “groyn” (snout, nose. l. 382).
19 Professor Cargill, in his latest pronouncement, would ascribe all the plays, apparently, to the Wakefield Master. His words are: “We inevitably return to Davidson's conclusion that the Towneley cycle is the work of one man” (Drama and Liturgy, pp. 118–119). I think no one except Mr. Cargill believes thus; certainly Davidson did not. I quote from his comments upon the Conspiracio, Play xx: “This play … is a pieced play, containing within the compass of a single play work of the earliest and of the latest period, as well as something of that author whose plays mark the beginnings of English comedy” (C. H. Davidson, Studies in the English Mystery Plays, p. 153).
20 Cauls, reticulated bags for confining the hair.
21 The words “a new” are now first recovered. I wish here to express my thanks and appreciation to Captain R. B. Haselden, Curator of Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, for reading this and the next line for me and for his unfailing helpfulness whenever I have approached him with a problem. The first line was legible only with the violet ray.
22 Previously transcribed “cuker” though clearly “culer.”
23 EETS, ES, lxxi, xxvi, n. 1.
24 PMLA, xli, 812, n. 2.
25 Dictionary, pp. 270–271.
26 I have yet to find a mediæval representation of a cow with other than long horns and in the West Riding, where the Craven breed was probably dominant, such long horns would almost necessarily have been in the poet's mind.
27 John Stowe, A Summarye of the Chronicles of Englande (London, 1604), p. 132. The passage appears first in this edition.
28 William Camden, Remaines, (London, 1614), p. 234. Note that this is the second edition of Camden.
29 EETS, ES, lxxi, xxvi.
30 See British Archeological Society Transactions, v and Dictionary, p. 271. Piked head-dress resembling horns must not be confused with pins so placed as to call for the oft quoted remark of the Knight de la Tour-Landry who, writing in France in 1472, said of a head-dress that “quill est hault leué sur longues espingles dargent plus dun dour sur la teste comme vn gibet.” (MS. Royal 19, C. vii, 40r.) For the transcription of this passage and for other favors I wish to thank cordially Professor L. M. Brandin of Paris and London. Likewise we must not be mislead by the fifteenth-century English transcription of de la Tour-Landry when it reads: “and hadde highe hornes” for the original “et estoient grans cornes.” (EETS, OS, xxx, 62.) The Englishman is converting the description into terms of his own time, for, as Professor Brandin wrote me, “grans” means “large, without doubt, as you can see by the context.” That context reads: “il dist que les femmes qui estoient ainsi cornues et branchues resemblent les limas cornus et les licornes.” (Fol. 38r.)
31 The actual history of the horned head-dress has been obscured by the loose use of the term by scholars. Norris says it appeared in the reign of Henry IV but also that it did not appear for sixty years after the arrival of Queen Anne. Clearly he uses the term in different senses in the two passages (op. cit., ii, 439 and 253). Herbert Druitt, describing the brass of Lady Halle, c. 1420, speaks of her cauls as “curving upwards and outwards and terminating above the head in a pair of horns” (Costume on Brasses, (London, 1906), p. 258), whereas Mrs. Ashdown says of the same brass: “We may trace the horned head-dress from this inception.” (op. cit., p. 150). We could illustrate at length.
32 I owe thanks to Mr. Leslie Bliss, Librarian at the Huntington Library, for putting me in touch with Mr. Kendrick. The latter's letter is dated from the Burlington Arts Club, 26 March, 1933.
33 Apparently accepted by Agnes Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England, (London, 1911), p. 422. At least she interprets the embarrassment of the Queen's ladies in waiting when pitched from their charette in 1393 as due to the destruction of their horned hats. I feel confident that Maidstone's line “Femina feminea sua dum sic femina nudat,” De Concordia, Camden Soc., (1838), p. 40, refers to the ladies' legs.
34 Horned head-dress of any sort must have been rather unusual in the West Riding as only one of the brasses in the Riding, that of Agnes wife of John Langton, St. Peters, Leeds, shows such attire and her hat is called “small” by Mr. Stephenson as he describes it (Yorks. Arch. Journal, xv, 23.)
35 So Surtees Society and EETS. Upon these all other transcriptions have been based.
36 Frederic William Fairholt, Costume in England, 3d ed. (Revised by H. A. Dillon) (London, 1885), ii, (Glossary), 141.
37 Dictionary, p. 157.
38 EETS, ES, lxxi, 399 (Glossary).
39 James O. Halliwell, Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, sub “cuker.”
40 Norris, op. cit., p. 370, dates the collar “before the end of the reign of Henry IV”; Frederic Hottenroth, La Costume (Paris, n.d.), ii, 74, and also Trachten der Volker Alter und neuer Zeit (Stuttgart, 1883), ii, 137, suggests the date 1420. The collar is found upon two Yorkshire brasses, one upon that of Agnes, wife of Sir Thomas St Quintin, c. 1420, in Harpham Church and the other upon that of Beatrice, wife of Sir John Routh, c. 1410, at Routh. As Agnes Routh shows a high waist line the date 1410 is probably early. (See Yorks. Arch. Journal, xii, 211 and 223.)
41 Pins played an exceedingly important part in the dress of ladies in the middle ages. Illustrative is the record of a purchase made of Johan de Breconnier, epinglier de Paris, by the Durchess of Orléans at the turn of the century, c. 1400. Her order was for several thousand long and short pins, and five hundred “de la façon d'Angleterre.” (E. D. Longman and S. Loch, Pins and Pincushions (1911), p. 16.)
42 Ashdown, op. cit., opposite p. 190.
43 Letter dated from the Museum 15 April, 1933. I wish here to thank Mr. Millar for his courtesy.
44 EETS, OS, xxxiii, xiv (MS. Harley 1746).
45 William H. Schofield, History of English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, p. 464.
46 EETS, OS, xxxiii, 31.
47 Royal MS. 19 C VII, fol. 18v. For transcription I am indebted to Professor Brandin.
48 See Harvey Eagleson, PMLA, xlvii, 339 ff.
49 The use of expensive fur by the lower classes was legislated against, III Edward IV, (1463), (See Planché, History, p. 132). Note our lass uses “cat skin!” For long collars on peasants see Dorothy Hartley, Mediæval Costume and Life, p. 112, plate F, (B.M.MS. Addl. 20698; c.1475) and Joseph Strutt, Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England (1796-99), plate cxvii.
50 Norris, op. cit., ii, 439–440. The hat is illustrated in plate 614A.
51 A material consisting of coarse tufts and refuse of wool and cotton NED. Padding of clothing was legislated against in III Edward IV. (Planché, History, p. 132). See Edward Parsons, History of Leeds (London, 1834), ii, 188; Geo. Clinch, The Antiquary's Book, English Costume, pp. 61–62; Victoria County History of Yorkshire, ii, 411.
52 EETS, ES, cii, 344. The date 1440 appears in the compiler's preface. Camden was in error, of course, when he translated Chaucer's “palynge” in the Parson's Tale, as “pleated” (Remaines, 1614 ed., p. 233).
53 Cf. John Edwin Wells, A Manual of the Writings etc., p. 238.
54 Camden Society, xiv, 275. (Political Poems, edited by Thomas Wright.)
55 Hair. Hair was used for padding garments.
56 So Hottenroth, op. cit., German edition, ii, 137; French edition ii, 73: Norris, op. cit., ii, 358. See Ashdown, op. cit., fig. 199: Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français (Paris, 1873), iii, fig. 29. See Dorothy Hartley, op. cit., p. 134, for peasants with pleated gowns and broad shoulders, tempus Edward IV, in whose reign the fad seems to have reached its height (MS. Harley, 4379).
57 Meaning uncertain.
58 The first instance in NED.
59 “Tayle, or trayne of a cloth: scrima-tis” (Prompt. Parv., p. 488.) “hoket” means “obstacle.”
60 Buttocks.
61 Fulling mill lumps.
62 Like a shock of wheat, bristled as hogs. On “stowke” see Edward Peacock, Myrc's Duties of a Parish Priest, EETS, OS, xxxi, 79.
63 Well blown belly.
64 Pollard glosses “animals? beings?” as frogs. (EETS, ES, lxxi, glossary.) It is interesting to compare with the picture of Pride and the details regarding the padded shoulders the following passage from a satire on priests written “not later than 1467”:
Make shorter your taylis and broder your crownys,
Leve your stuffede dowblettes and your pleytid gowns.
(Percy Society, xxvii, 57)
65 This word fits the picture beautifully as it is defined in the Prompt. Parv., 1440, “loke of hey or oder lyke.” (op. cit., p. 268).
66 Hooks.
67 Curly.
68 Prologue, l. 81. Chaucer is describing the Squire.
69 Cf. Planché, Dictionary, p. 242; Ashdown, op. cit., p. 140; and Norris, op. cit., ii, 432. A very early dated case of the short hair is in the cut of Occleve presenting his poems to Prince Hal, 1412 (reproduced in colors by Henry Shaw, Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, ii (unpaginated), and in Chamber's Encyclopedia of English Literature, i, 78.)
70 “No self respecting man, except those of the lower and peasant class, wore long hair until the reign of Edward IV.” See Norris, op. cit., ii, 433.
71 The brass of Brian Rouclyff in Conisborough Church, West Riding. (Yorks. Arch. Journal, xv, facing p. 10). Cf. “Figure of a knight,” c.1480, in Howden Church (ibid., xi, 170) and man in armour, Helmsley Church, West Riding, c.1460–1465 (ibid., xv, 282).
72 So NED, giving thus the consensus of opinion.
73 In Dorothy Hartley, op. cit., p. 36 and n. 1.
74 Data given by Mr. Eric G. Millar in the letter already referred to, 15 April, 1933. Mr. Mann also refers to Victor Gay, says Mr. Millar, who, in his Glossaire Archeologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, illustrated the cod-piece from Bon Berger, 1379. The name used, is “brayette.” The Foxton reference is to MS. R. 15. 21, Trinity Coll., Cam.
75 It is worth noting that, though the Prompt. Parv. gives “codde, of a mannys priuyte,” (p. 89), it does not give “codde piece.” This is as late as 1440.
76 Parson's Tale, ll. 421 ff. Chaucer, like our poet, is discussing the Seven Deadly Sins. Italics mine.
77 Page 151. For pictorial examples see Planché, Dict., p. 311, and Ashdown, op. cit., p. 180.
78 Op. cit., ii, 357–358.
79 The passages are not affected by Mr. Frank Cady's theory of an editor in couplets and quatrains. JEGP, x, 572 and xi, 244.)
80 There is some bibliographical evidence favoring an authorial addition of the passage about the Sins. Stanzas 40–46 inclusive could be omitted entirely and they begin almost as if in response to popular demand:
yit of the synnes seuen som thyng special
now nately to neven that renys ouer all. (305–306)
81 Pollard, looking upon the advent of the horned headdress as dating 1388, advances the date of the poet to the “early years of the fifteenth century” (op. cit., xxvii). I am asking a slightly greater lateness in Yorkshire practice after 1420.
82 See page 631 and note 2 above.
83 Cf. Surtees Society, iii, viii–x; Matthew Peacock, Anglia, neue folge xii, 516–519 (repeated in Yorks. Arch. Journal, xv, 94 ff. and LTLS, March 5, 1925); W. W. Skeat, Alhemœum, Dec. 2, 1892. Woodkirk was about four miles north of Wakefield; all the allusions in the plays are to places south or east of the town, unless to the town itself.
84 Cf. Stiri. Soc., iii, xi–xii.
85 Play xiii, l. 455.
86 Play XXX, l. 126. Leland describes the Road in detail. Cf. Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal, x, 243.
87 Cf. Peacock, Anglia, n. f. xii, 517.
88 Cf. ll. 75; 76; 110; 154–155.
89 Alfred S. Ellis, Yorks, Arch. and Tp. Journal, viii, 493, n. 6.
90 Quoted from Lucy Toulmin Smith, York Mystery Plays, xxxviii.
91 This evidence, first given by Mr. Peacock with errors in dating and transcription (Yorks, Arch. Journal, xv and LTLS, June 7, 1928), and later given by Mr. J. W. Walker, who discovered it, I shall give in toto because of its very great interest and of the fact that it is at present so comparatively inaccessible. I quote it from the Yorkshire Archeological Society, Record Series, lxxiv, pp. 20–22.
1. Itm a pay$nM is layd yt gyles Dolleffe shall brenge In or Causse to be broght ye regenall (original) of Corpus Xti play before ys & wytsonday In pane. …
2. Itm a pay$nM ys layde yt ye mesters of ye Corpus Xti playe shall Come & mayke thayre a Count (account) before ye gentyllmen & burgessus of ye toun before this & may day next. In payn of everye o$nM not so doynge 20s.
1. Itm a payne is sett that everye crafte and occupacion doo bringe furthe theire pagy aunts of Corpus Christi daye as hathe bene heretofore used and to gyve furthe the speches of the same in after holydayes in payne of everye one not so doynge to forfett xls.
2. Itm a payne is sett that everye player be redy in his pagyaunt at setled tyme before 5 of ye clocke in ye mornynge in payne of every one not so doynge to forfett vjs. viijd.
3. Itm a payne is sett yt ye players playe where setled and no where els in payne of no so doynge to forfett xxs.
4. Itm a payne is sett yt no man goe armed to disturb ye playe or hinder ye procession in payne of everye one so doynge vjs. viiid.
5. Itm a payne is sett yt everye man shall leave hys weapons att hys home or at hys ynne in payne not so doynge vjs viiid.
6. Ye summe of ye expens of ye Cherche mester for ye Corpus Christi playe xvijs. xd.
a. Item payd to ye preste xijd.
b. Itm payd to ye mynstrells xxd.
c. Itm payd to ye mynstrells of Corpus Christi playe iiis. ivd.
d. Itm payde for ye Corpus Christi playe & wrytynge of ye spechys for yt iijs. viijd.
e. Itm payd for ye Baner for ye mynstrells vjs. viijd.
f. Itm payd for ye ryngyng ye same day vjd.
g. Itm payd for garlonds on Corpus Christi day xijd.
92 The Library, 3d ser., v, 293. Mr. E. K. Chambers also considers the manuscript a register (Mediaeval Stage, ii, 143). The position of Charles Davidson that the present form of the plays shows the hand of a compiler (Studies in the English Mystery Plays, 129–130) and that of F. W. Cady that it shows the hands of two redactors, one working in couplets and the other in quatrains (JEGP x, 572 ff.), have already been replied to by Miss Grace Frank (Mod. Phil., xv, 181 ff.) The present study but renders doubly certain the position of those who see in the plays a register.
93 Plays viii, xviii, xx, and xxvi. Of these the first two and the last are derived from York. There may be significance in the fact that, according to Miss Smith, original stage directions in the manuscript of the York “register” are in red (York Mystery Plays, xvii).
94 The exceptions are confined to Play i where six couplets not involving change of speaker are each written in two lines and Play ii where the couplets are written indifferently in one line with internal rime or in two lines ligatured. An apparent exception in Play xx and another in Play xxiii are easily explicable in rather clear scribal error in transcription.
95 So on folios 14b, 22a, 29a, 45b, 54a, 65b, 78a, etc.
96 So on folio 22a he adds “Moyses, Moyses”; on folio 70a he adds “Petrus”; etc.
97 The scribe seems to have made an error also in the heading of Play iii, where a whole line, done in red, has been erased and a black line drawn through the space. There is no way of telling whether he made the erasure or not. It is so complete that nothing can be rescued, even with the violet ray. The loss may be great, as Play iii is assigned by the scribe to Wakefield. The erasure is on folio 7a.
98 The presence of this last entry was not noted by Professor Louis Wann in his study of the manuscript in PMLA, xxiii, 145.
99 EETS, ES, lxxi, xxviii.
100 Cf. Frank Cady, JEGP, x, 572 ff. and Grace Frank, Mod. Phil., for January, 1918.
101 Though the Surtees Society editor postulated the loss of four leaves after Play i (page 7), the Early English Text Society editor postulated the loss of twelve (page vii, n. 1) and this error persists even in the work of Professor Wann (PMLA, xiii, 139). My attention was called to the actual nature of the loss by Captain Haselden.
102 Op. cit., p. 8, n. 1 and p. 68, n. 1.
103 The average number of actors is seven. In the York cycle the average is 7.7. Nine of the Towneley plays call for ten or more actors with speaking parts and Play xx, the Conspiracio, calls for fifteen.
104 At York a law against doubling by an actor seems to have been passed in 1476 (Smith, op. cit., xxxvii). In Coventry in 1443 members of certain crafts were forbidden to play in any pageant except their own without the consent of the Mayor (Chambers, Mediæval Stage, ii, 360).
106 The tax record for Wakefield is printed in Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal, vi, pp. 150–152. Further reference to the record will not be given. Mr. J. W. Walker, in Chapter vi of his forthcoming History of Wakefield (Wakefield—The West Yorkshire Printing Co. Limited), says, “Wakefield had a population of 567 souls.” In reaching this total, however, he “included the whole of the old parish of Wakefield and of Sandal, including Walton,” he writes me. He adds further “I quite agree with you that of Wakefield town the population is not 567 but 315.” (Letter dated Feb. 5, 1934.)
106 Cf. Chambers, op. cit., ii, 340–341. The assumption which he and others seem to make that the number of plays corresponded with the number of guilds listed has no proof, so far as I know. See Seiden Society, xiv, 33–34.
107 On the smaller returns in 1379 see Eleanor Lloyd, Yorks. Arch. Journal, xx, 319. See also Arthur Leach, Beverley Town Documents, Seld. Soc., xiv, xviii.
108 Quoted from Chambers, op. cit., ii, 424.
109 Archeologia, vii, 340; quoted from George Poulson, Beverlac (London, 1829), 2 vols. in 1, p. 135 and n. 2.
110 Cf. Hardin Craig, EETS, ES, lxxxvii, xiii.
111 L. F. Salzman, English Life in the Middle Ages, p. 78. J. W. Ashley, Introduction to English Economic History (1893), ii, 11, gives the figure as 9000.
112 Edited by Maude Sellers, Surtees Soc., cxx and cxxv.
113 Data conveniently summarized by Hardin Craig, op. cit., App. II.
114 Idem, p. 83.
115 Op. cit., ii, 359.
116 Surtees Soc., cxxix, 58–59.
117 Idem, cxxv, xlvi-xlvii and 171–173.
118 Idem, cxxv, xlvii and 102–104.
119 On original number of plays see three paragraphs below.
120 Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal vii, 187.
121 This small number of hostelries is of itself significant for, as Mr. Peacock says, the “crowds would require the hostelries of a large town to accommodate them” (Yorks. Arch. Journal, xv, 101). Note the allusions to inns in the Burgess records of Wakefield which we quoted, note 91 above.
122 For a digest of the tax returns see George T. Clark, 'The West Riding Poll Tax and Lay Subsidy Rolls, 2nd. Richard II,“ Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal. vii, 187–193.
123 Chambers, op. cit., ii, 371.
124 The “ridings” were divided into “wapentakes” in Yorkshire.
125 Mr. Peacock thinks the entry given in note 91, sub-head 12 above, shows that Banns were to be rewritten. Possibly the lost Sig. A contained such Banns. (LTLS, June 7, 1928).
136 Op. cit., ii, 414.
127 Yorks. Arch. Journal., xv, 94.
128 Vict. Hist. Co. Yks., iii, 445.
129 I have included two men bearing craft names because they paid the usual trade tax; I have also considered as two the crafts whose names might be but chance variants. Thus the numbers I have used represent the maximum possible.
130 The indications of crafts upon the manuscript is, of course, much later than 1379, yet it is interesting to note that the tax rolls show but three Barkers (Play i), one Glover (Play ii), and no Listers (Play viii), or Fishers (Play xxvii) in the whole wapentake. The words Lister and Fisher appear once each as surnames but with a tax of but iiij d. each, the tax taken from those not in trades or occupations.
131 These six were the tailors, smiths, spicers, suters (bootmakers), websters, and wrights.
132 History of Leeds, i, 303.
133 The first and third accounts do not segregate the returns from Wakefield, but the third shows three names missing from those assigned to Wakefield in the second. See Exch. K. R. Accts., bundle no. 345, 1st account no. 15; 2nd., no. 17; 3d., no. 18; reprinted in Yorks. Arch. Soc., Record Series, lxiv, 39 ff., 95 ff., and 98 ff.
134 Herbert Heaton, in his The Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, pp. 69–72, dates the three aulneger's accounts each one year late. He also gives in error the total cloths reported from Wakefield in the second report as 173§. The report shows: Emma Earl, 48; Roger Presaw, 26; John Kent, 24; Richard Burbrigg, 30; William Bate, 16; Thomas Kendalle, 30; Henry Draper, 29; Total, 203 (Exch. K. R. Accounts, bundle no. 345, Package no. 17).
136 Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal., vi, 150 ff. The number of weavers seems to be a better index to the size of the town than the number of cloths taxed. In the first account, 1394–95, the total of cloths listed from Wakefield, Leeds, and Doncaster was 87; in the second, 1395–96, the number from Wakefield alone was 203; in the third, 1396–97, for those named in the previous account, there was the following astonishing falling off in the number of cloths taxed: Emma Earl, 48 to 8; Roger Presaw, 26 to 10; John Kent, 24 to 6; and Thomas Kendalle, 30 to 2 (ibid.). The names of Burbrigg, Bate, and Draper do not appear; this may not be of significance if the list of the previous year listed under the names Wakefield and Leeds “The whole district containing Bradford, Halifax, and Huddersfield; in fact, the whole of the county today engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloth” as Mr. Heaton thinks (op. cit., p. 71). Mr. J. W. Walker gives evidence in rebuttal of this view in Chapter xxi of his forthcoming History of Wakefield.
136 It may be added that Professor Gayley's use of the Tyler Rebellion as a means of dating falls in view of the fact that this Rebellion did not affect the district about Wakefield. See Vict. Hist. Co. Yorks., iii, 442.
137 The next account is dated 1468. Mr. Heaton suggests that the aulnege was “farmed out” during the interim (op. cit., p. 72).
138 For Mr. Pollard's arguments used see EETS, ES, lxxi, xxvi–xxvii and notes to these.
139 See Hope Traver, “The Relations of the Musical Terms in the Woodkirk Shepherd Plays to the Date of Their Composition,” MLN, xx, 1 ff.
140 Probably the proximity of Nostel Priory accelerated the spread of the knowledge of music about Wakefield, but hardly at the rate called for by Mr. Pollard's theory.
141 Here again the influence of Nostel was probably felt. Mr. Robert W. Henderson, Librarian of the Raquet and Tennis Club of New York City, in a kind reply to a letter wrote me that priests, in the Middle Ages, “were undoubtedly tennis players” (letter dated August 31, 1933). The game, however, a different game from our “lawn tennis,” of course—bore at first the name luens pilae, (Ency. Brit., sub “lawn tennis”) and in extant monuments is called tennis first by Gower c.1400. (NED)
112 In the single year 1427–28 are references to sheep rot, to floods, and to taxation; during the years 1433–35 there were heavy frosts, dearth of corn, and hard times in general. (Cf. An English Chronicle etc., Camden Soc., O.S., lxiv (1856), 55 and 62; Collections of a London Citizen, the so-called “Gregory's Chronicle,” Camden Soc., N.S., xvii (1876), 162 and 187; A Short English Chronicle, Camden Soc., N.S., xxviii (1880), 62. Cf. also Fabyan's Chronicle [London 1533], cxc, verso.)
143 We are told that 20,000 Yorkshire-men had flocked to his standard (see Thomas Baines, Yorkshire, Past and Present, ii, 547–548), and that a royal edict became necessary to stop the flow of Yorkshire pilgrims to his shrine. (See William Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, 3rd edition, iii, 52, n. 4).
144 For a detailed account see Alex. D. H. Leaderman, Yorks, Arch. Journal, xi, 189–199.
145 The history of the church is taken from galley proofs of Chapter IX of the forthcoming History of Wakefield, by Mr. J. W. Walker, O.B.E., F.S.A., Hon. Secy. of the Yorkshire Archeological Society. I wish here to thank Mr. Walker, not only for sending me galley sheets but also for other courtesies which made demands upon his time when he was very busy superintending his book through the press.
146 For bibliographical evidence that the borrowings from York were later than 1415 see page 659 below. The facts we have presented seem to refute definitely the thesis of Miss Marie C. Lyle that the Wakefield and York cycles were originally the same. (“The original Identity of the York and Towneley Cycles,” in Research Publications of the University of Minnosota, viii, no. 3. For criticisms see Miss Frances Foster, PMLA, xliii, 132–134 and W. W. Greg, The Library, 3d ser., v, 294.) There also seems no reason for accepting longer Mr. Greg's statement that the borrowing from York was “presumably … about the middle of the second half of the fourteenth century” (ibid., 293).
147 Yorks, Arch. and Tp. Journall, vi, 150.
148 Yorkshire Notes, Harley MS. 803, Plut, lxx, quoted from Yorks. Arch. and Tp. Journal, vi., 428.
149 Cf. the poll-tax records of 1379.
150 This work was still in progress in 1458 as shown by the will of Thomas Haukyn, wool merchant of Wakefield. See Chapter ix of Mr. Walker's forthcoming History of Wakefield.
151 The Library, 3d ser., v, 291.
152 The original Identity etc., Chap. ii.
153 Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, The York Mystery Plays (Oxon., 1885). She reprints Burton's “list,” xix–xxvii.
154 Miss Lyle, forced to see the import of these facts, negating as they do her thesis that the York and Towneley plays were originally the same, resorts to some queer logic in rebuttal. She writes: “The discrepancy in the two cycles of the division into separate plays, however, makes it seem probable that the separation took place before 1415. There is reason to believe that Burton's list represents the true situation as it existed in 1415 only in regard to the separation of plays and their assignment to crafts, but that in many cases the description given the characters and chief events refers to a situation existing at an earlier period” (op. cit., p. 31, n. 6). Her position regarding the separation of the cycles is sufficiently refuted by this study. Her final assertion will not bear the test of logic. It but represents a “reason to believe” which she must have or give up her thesis.
155 I am aware that Miss Grace Clark thinks the influence of the Gospel of Nicodemus was felt upon the York plays between 1400 and 1415 (PMLA, xliii, 154 ff.). Her judgment, however, is based on very doubtful evidence. Of the five plays concerned she herself admits that one, Play xxix, is ambiguous in its lack of evidence, and that two others, Plays xxx and xxxviii, include important characters and material not mentioned by Burton. Her case rests, then, upon the evidence contained in Plays xxxiii and xxxvii. In the first of these she thinks the “bowing of the standards” in the play in the “Register” is alluded to by Burton in his words “milites tenentes hastas cum vexillis,” and in the second she feels that Burton is actually describing the extant play. In both cases, however, her judgment is based upon a personal interpretation of the very evidence which Miss Lyle interprets to an opposite conclusion. She may be right as to Play xxxiii with Burton's reference to “vexillis,” but her contention that Burton's “(vi) boni et vi mali” in the Harrowing of Hell refers to “seven spirits of the dead and five devils” scarce carries conviction. Particularly is this so when we discover that such interpretation violates Burton's otherwise unbroken practice of listing characters by name when they are given names in the corresponding play in the “Register,” and that, when he does use the terms “good and evil spirits” elsewhere, in describing Play xlviii, the ascription is correct. At most, then, Miss Clark seems to have shown but the possibility that the influence of the Gospel of Nicodemus began to be felt before Burton made his list in 1415. Even were we to accept her argument, however, I believe my case would stand.
156 This resumé is based upon his work in the nine-line stanza. It is the judgment of the writer that there is almost certain evidence of his hand in plays in other verse forms. The temptation is strong to suggest that it was the Master who received a fee for playing at York in 1446.
